Re: FREE GAME: Return of the Phantom

On Thu, 7 Nov 2024 21:50:04 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 14:30 this Wednesday (GMT):

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 10:58:05 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
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I have fond memories of the simple text adventures on the Specky 48k
(with even more simple names such as Adventure A with the follow up
being Adventure B) in the early days as that was one of the staples
along with arcade games. It didn't take long for devs. to be more
ambitious and you got titles like Sherlock, Valhalla and even hybrids
such as The Forth Protocol.

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The nostalgia is bringing a tear to me eye!

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Even on PC, text adventures lasted surprisingly long. I always thought
text-adventures as mainly an 8-bit thing; a genre that had its heyday
in the very early 80s but was quickly supplanted by more graphical
fare. But even into the 90s, there were still commercially-released
text-adventure games (albeit enhanced with pictures). Games like
Legend's "Homeworld" and "Spellcasting" series, or smaller titles like
"Scapeghost", "Transylvania", "Demoniak" and numerous games from
Magnetic Scrolls (although the last were ports of older games).
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The genre of course exists to this day, but it's incredibly niche and
most releases are freeware put out by dedicated modders. There's a
host of great games on IFDB.org for those still inclined towards
interactive fiction.
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Amongst all examples of the genre, I probably enjoyed "Portal" the
most (no, not THAT one; the game released in 1987). Although purists
might argue it's not really a text-adventure, since there's no
parser... and really, no game. It's more akin to a 'walking
simulator', except you're browsing through a database trying to piece
together the story (there are no real puzzles; the trigger to open new
articles is reading older ones). But it was a story told almost
entirely through text, so I think it qualifies. ;-)

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Honestly, that sounds exactly like the kinda game I'd like, considering
one of my favorite games is literally a internet simulator with the
only gameplay being reading (Hypnospace). Are there any roms available?

Unfortunately, the game hasn't been for sale for thirty+ years. There
used to be a website that had a 'port' (basically, the game re-done in
HTML) created by the author but it's 404.

"Portal" was one of a number of games released during what has since
been termed the 'bookware' era of interactive fiction, when authors
(and book publishers) started to see the genre as a new type of
literature and style of reading. These games took the form of direct
translations of existing books (such as Stephen King's "The Mist" or
Tolkien's "The Hobbit"), or games penned (in whole or part) by
legitimate authors ("Fourth Protocol" by Frederick Forsyth and
"Mindwheel" by Robert Pinsky). They latter were often accompanied with
a release of a novel by the same name; an early form of multimedia
publishing. "Portal" also was released alongside a novel, which is
essentially all of the game's text organized into book format.

The bookware movement didn't last very long; people didn't like
reading long-form literature on computer screens, and as games they
weren't very satisfying ("Portal" especially; there is nothing you
could really describe as "game play" in it. You simple move between
various database-hubs looking to see if there's a new article
available; if there is, you read it, then go back to looking for the
next one.) Still, the story -while not particularly original- was
entertaining enough, fairly well written, and the act of having to
search out the different parts of the story (and piece together the
narrative) added a lot to the game's tone and atmosphere.

That said, playing the game on the Apple ][ back in 1987 was a trial.
It came on (IIRC) four double-sided floppy disks, and you constantly
had to swap back and forth every time you entered a new 'database'. So
you'd read an article in the "History" database, then exit to the main
interface, enter 'science database' to see if there was a new article
(disk swap!); nope, nothing new. Exit to interface, navigate to
"Education database" (disk swap); no article here. Repeat ad nauseum
through the twelve databases until you found the next available bit of
story to read, then repeat the whole procedure. The PC version had
_far_ inferior video and sound... but it allowed hard-drive
installation and that makes it my favorite version. In truth, I never
actually finished playing the game on the Apple.

I'm not so sure how well "Portal" (1987) holds up today, though. The
story is still fun, but like I said, it isn't all that original nor
does it particularly inspire as literature. It felt very
forward-thinking in 1987 (a game with actual story! Multi-media
tie-ins! Wiki-walking before there was such a thing as a wiki!) that
made it stand out. Nowadays, all these things are so ordinary and
taken for granted that all "Portal" (1987) is left with is its
run-of-the-mill sci-fi yarn. It's not a bad read, but is it worth the
hassle of bumbling through the clumsy interface and 4-color graphics?
I'm not so sure it is.

But back in 1987, it felt revolutionary.